Development Account Projects
Capacity-building in support of trade integration, with emphasis on integrated trade information flow management and trade facilitation in Central Asia
Background:
International trade is a key vehicle for national economic growth, the elimination of poverty and enhanced regional cooperation, and its contribution to prosperity leads to greater economic stability. The newly independent States of Central Asia have, during the transition period, developed diverse trade policies, procedures, standards and documents, which has created unintended impediments to trade and growth.
Several efforts by United Nations agencies and international development actors supporting regional initiatives on trade have thus been stymied. However, even if measures were taken to promote effective trade policies aimed at greater subregional integration, the countries still lack the requisite capacity to implement them. A second problem is the lack of an integrated approach to the gathering and sharing of information on trade and transport, which is at the core of trade facilitation in international supply chains. Thirdly, political problems often overshadow the priorities of regional integration, efficient trade and potentially profitable transport corridors. Furthermore, some countries’ accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has not yet brought the expected benefits, as most of the neighbours with which they have the closest trade links have not acceded to the system.
ECE and ESCAP recently organized a number of expert group meetings that focused on issues of trade facilitation in Central Asia. ECE has supported the establishment of the Transport Corridor of Europe, the Caucasus and Asia (TRACECA) project for harmonizing trade procedures, which led to the setting up of national working groups. Yet international standards for documentary procedures, such as those of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, have not been fully taken into account. Moreover, because of resource limitations ECE recently stopped its support for TRACECA activities on trade procedures.
Therefore, the proposed project will respond to the urgent need for trade facilitation and subregional integration. The project will seek to implement a harmonized set of trade and transport documents in the region. In this context, it will support the objectives of the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia and will be executed by ECE, in collaboration with ESCAP and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Objective:
To increase the capacity of Central Asian countries to develop regional trade integration and facilitation policies, so as to increase their competitiveness in regional and global markets.
Expected accomplishments:
- Improved capacity to formulate policy for trade integration, liberalization and facilitation, implementation of free trade agreements and improved trade information flows
- Improved local capacity to implement policy in regional trade integration and to deal with innovative tools for trade facilitation and integrated management of trade information flows
- Increased capacity of local government agencies and businesses to implement international standards for trade facilitation and electronic business
Implementation status:
A letter inviting Uzbekistan to host the opening seminar was signed by the Executive Secretaries of UNECE and UNESCAP and sent to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs (responsible for SPECA) and Minister of Foreign Economic Relations in July 2006. A date was proposed for this seminar in November 2006. Letters announcing the project and inviting the seven Governments (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) were drafted and signed by the Executive Secretaries of UNECE and UNESCAP in September 2006. The response of the Government of Uzbekistan was received in October 2006, noting that the schedule of activities was too busy in 2006. Therefore a proposal for organizing the event in the spring of 2007 was tabled.
The UNECE Regional Adviser for Trade organized a mission to Uzbekistan in January 2007 to discuss the details of this opening seminar. Provisional dates in May 2007 were agreed, as well as possibilities for organizing synergies with other projects. The organization dealing with the logistics of the event will be the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan. Only Kyrgyzstan has nominated its focal point for the project as of 29 January 2007. Discussions with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have taken place on vice-ministerial level, and in each case assurance was given that the focal points would be nominated in the shortest possible time.
The Inaugural Meeting of the SPECA Working Group on Trade took place on 12 December 2006. Not all countries were represented at that meeting. The Tajik hosts constituted the major part of the participants. The Work Plan and terms of reference of the SPECA Working Group on Trade were adopted and a report with set of recommendations was drafted.
